KEEGO – The Durable Alternative
We’re making a clear statement about quality and durability.
Our bottle is the world’s first squeezable metal bottle—with an interior made of pure titanium. And that’s exactly what sets it apart.
Durability as a Key Factor
What sets KEEGO apart from other sports bottles is not only its innovative material, but also its long service life.
96 % of users use their KEEGO for longer than a year, over 60% even three years or more. In comparison: Conventional plastic bottles often end up in the trash after just a few months. Around 40% of conventional sports bottles are replaced within the first year, at KEEGO are only 4 %. Only 16% the Plastic bottles are longer than tre anni. in use.
See the impressive results among our users, where we compared the lifespan of conventional sports bottles with that of the KEEGO:
Every year that a bottle is used for a longer period of time—as opposed to disposable bottles—saves:
- the purchase of new bottles
- Production energy
- logistics and transport emissions
- packaging materials
- many hundreds of chemicals in your body
- bad smell and Taste
- unnecessary trips to the store or sessions in the online shop,
and, of course, Time, money and hassle!
Instead of looking for a new bottle every few months, KEEGO offers you a solution that lasts.
And you can do so with a clear conscience and great Taste!
The Future Is Reusable
KEEGO is anything but a disposable bottle. Thanks to the nonstick titanium coating on the inside, it’s easy to clean. Unlike plastic, titanium has a non-porous surface. As a result, no particles settle inside the bottle that could lead to mold growth. KEEGO can therefore be used significantly longer than comparable conventional plastic bottles—on average, about five times as long!
Local production and short distances
Our bottles are produced and stored in our main market, Germany, to keep transport routes and emissions as low as possible.
Our mindset: Buy less, but buy purposefully, and use the products for as long as possible.
Why do we use plastic for the outer shell?
The plastic outer shell makes the KEEGO more robust and flexible, and thus more functional and durable. Our standard KEEGO is super lightweight (86 g/750 ml). This means that very little plastic is used.
The starting point:
Plastic bottles have been widespread since the 1970s. In cycling, they represented a major advance over the earlier aluminum bottles with their cork closures. The improved functionality was a clear driver for this change at the time. The plastic bottle was lighter, more durable, fit better in the bottle holder and - very importantly - you could drink faster thanks to the squeezability. These advantages over a metal bottle were so massive that the metal bottle disappeared in sports.
Since then, plastic has begun its “triumphant march” into most areas of our lives. Better functionality and a better price—who can compete with that? The same goes for our favorite adversary: the plastic bottle. Today, you can get a standard plastic sports bottle in your color and with your logo for just €0.50 each. A dream come true—not just for every user, but also for every marketer!
Personal experiences of our founder, Lukas
I still remember how, as a 10-year-old, I received one of these plastic bottles from a Swedish floorball player after the European Championship final. To me, the value of that bottle was about 100 times its production cost. I used it for many years and still vividly remember the mold that formed on it and the disgusting Taste smell it developed over time. My mother didn’t have the heart to throw it away.
In retrospect: That's what she should have done!
When I think about my experience, it's no wonderthat around 30,000 bottles are thrown away at every Tour de France, which the fans (hopefully!) can collect. There is no other fan article that even comes close to this number.
At KEEGO, I have taken a close look at the disadvantages of plastic sports bottles. The three main ones are: Taste health, and cleaning. Reason enough to invest in alternative solutions.
As development got underway, I began to delve deeper and deeper into the topic of product longevity. And I have to say, the many factors that influence it are not easy to understand. From raw materials, transportation, production (and the energy source used for it), and product lifespan all the way to collection and recycling, there are many steps to consider. Not all of them are easy to measure and compare.
Today:
KEEGO is made for use in sports where squeezability, low weight and robustness are essential factors. In many areas, such as in cycling races, in tight spaces and one behind the other, glass or metal bottles are often not an alternative because the risk of injury to the group becomes too great should one of the bottles fall to the ground. Therefore, we compare ourselves with those bottles that offer a similar functionality in these aspects. These are made of plastic - especially LDPE, HDPE, PP and PET.
In recent years, the collection and recycling of PET has developed massively. We hope that this will also happen for other plastics. However, PET bottles are designed for single use. With continuous use, they unfortunately become thin and fragile quickly.
Therefore, here is a short digression on single-use packaging - to put things into perspective: Single-use packaging is by far the bigger problem.
95% of plastic packaging material is thrown away after a short initial use. This is by far our biggest problem. Please read more about it at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Even in countries that have introduced collection systems for plastic packaging other than PET, only a small proportion is recycled as we would like it to be. In Germany, for example, of all the plastic packaging that ended up in the yellow recycling bin in 2019, only 47% was recycled into new products or raw materials. The rest ended up being incinerated (Source:German Environment Agency)
The difficulty with recycling food packaging is that you have to have precise control over what was contained in the recycled material. This means all types of plastics, dyes, additives, labels, closures, etc. Sometimes thermal recycling is simply the more efficient solution. Countries and institutions are continuously improving the processes for separation and recycling, but there is still a long way to go.
But now for the good news: By far the biggest factor affecting a product’s environmental footprint is its lifespan—how long we use it.
In the future, we want to help reduce consumption (buy better products, but fewer of them), to recycle (develop materials and processes that enable recycling) and to reuse (manufacture products that last longer and can be reused).
Since our launch, we have improved aspects of the bottle with each production run to make it last longer AND work better. Because we also believe that a product will only be used permanently if it functions perfectly and does not create the need to buy something new.
For us, the most important aspects are functionality:
- Pure Taste
- No unwanted substances and microplastics in the water
- Easy to clean
- Low weight
- Squeezability
Today, 99% of reusable sports bottles are made of PE or PP plastic. As mentioned above, this is a very cheap solution.
Mother Nature would prefer it if we used our bottles for many years. In stark contrast, studies show that it would be better for our bodies not to use conventional plastic bottles for too long (keyword: microplastics). Read morehere.
These problems are easily solved with KEEGO. The easy cleaning of the titanium in the KEEGO bottle also helps to prevent mold, which also contributes to its longevity.
Keep going
Lukas